Gardening season is here. Happiness and surprises.

I just love this beautiful season! Spring and fall are by far my favorites. Theg entle breezes, starting and harvesting the garden, warm days and cool nights. Ahhhh it's my time. :) 

I was able to plant several of my seedlings today during nap time.  The pumpkin and tomatoes are growing too big for my little tray. 

Since we won't be eating the pumpkins this year I planted it in the soiled garden bed. (It's been cleaned, but precautions are being made ;)

It was wilty from being in the sun, but perked right up after I planted, watered and covered it. My how it has grown in less than a month! 

I covered the edges with dirt to keep the plastic from blowing away. We can get some nasty winds in NM. 

My salad bed covered in plastic is finally starting to sprout some greens! I see spinach, butter and romaine lettuce and carrots! Yay! 

I have also been collecting gallon milk jugs for the past month to use as little greenhouses for the tomatoe plants. We don't drink a lot of milk so I had some help from some friends in my local attachment parenting group. (Thank goodness for them!) 

The makeshift greenhouses should last just about a month before the tomatoes outgrow them and I can then take them off and cover the bed with shading. 

That's all garlic at the bottom of the picture. Mmmmmm I can wait for salsa and spaghetti sauce. 

What do you do with your tomatoes? I love having fresh tomatoes for salads and burgers and sandwiches. I actually only eat fresh tomatoes, I really can't stand store bought ones. I never did like tomatoes until I started growing them, which I only did for my husband, and for salsa. But now I crave them all winter long! I was wishing we could grow them indoors in the winter and have contemplated several options, but never followed through with any. 

This winter however, is going to be different. 

I received a advertising flyer in the mail yesterday for harbor freight. I thought about throwing it away, and then decided to flip through it. After tearing the sides open I opened up directly to the page with a greenhouse coupon. 

$220?!?! Hot damn! It must be a piece of shit. 3 1/2 star rating. Hmmmm I took this picture and jokingly sent it to my husband with the text "I'm on my way! Meet me there if you want to stop me!" 

Ha ha ha he replied with two emojis. 

😳

👍🏻 

Ahem. What?!? We started to converse a little more, so I went to the computer to investigate the reviews. Surprisingly, most were really good. And a collective of the negatives had to do with the instructions on how to put it together. It's harbor freight. They are as bad as IKEA! What do people expect? I do have to make myself remember sometimes, that people are not as savvy at figuring these things out. Most reviews said it was sturdy, lasted years, gave advice on building a good foundation (which is key, and also where several bad reviews stemmed). 

Hubby came home from work for lunch and asked if I had already bought it. 😂😂😂 After further discussion, that awesome man went and picked one up for me!!!

******** HAPPY DANCE! 👯💏***********

I cannot wait to get started on this! I know it's too late for spring seedlings but come fall, it's on! I have a feeling it's going to make my life soooo much simpler, and I can't wait. 😊

Kindergarten Quilt

My sons kindergarten class helped make a quilt for their annual gala. They have a silent auction to help raise funds for their Educational Assistants for the following year.

While discussing odds and ends with his teacher one day she mentioned making this quilt and seemed rather bogged down by it. I told her if she needed any help with it to let me know, because sewing is kind of my thing. 😉 Her face lit up and asked if I could quilt. Heck yes!

A week later she gave me what she had done so far. She did an amazing job! All the kiddos put together the little critters. Cut, placed and ironed them. She sewed them together and pinned them in place, and sewed some of the appliqué background down. 

From here I took over. I sewed on the little critters first, and then purchased some fabric for the backing. She had used an old sheet but while sewing, some of it was bunched together and had become crooked.

 New backing was easier than seam ripping and re sewing what she had already done. 

I just loved this fabric. 

After basting it down I began to quilt the ground and tree, then the leaves, and then the clouds. I used a pebble pattern for the ground, and jagged lines for the tree to look like bark. 

I did non touching swirls for the tree leaves, and added white clouds in the sky. 

It seems Soooo easy typing it out, but man has it been awhile since I quilted. I totally forgot how much thread you go through. Myself and the hubby made several trips to Joanns for thread. And I ended up buying all of the brown 8190 and having to go to the other Joanns across town to get more. 

And the shoulder work! Whew! Felt like I was wrestling bears.

Here in this picture, I ran out of green three with just that much left to quilt. 😖 One of this heartbreaking moments of regret. Ha ha 

Turns out I needed another spool anyway. After I was done quilting I decided to add an appliqué stitch around the tree edges. So. much. Thread! 

I really fell in love with this quilt as a worked on it. I dreamt of auctioning on it and then making some kind of copy for all the kids who helped make it. Then reality hit and I realized that would cost hundreds of dollars and so much more time. But I will bid on it at the auction. 😉

The final quilt. 

I was super happy with it. I heard lots of parents were pleased with it and wanted to bid on it. Hopefully it brings in some money for their auction. I had lots of fun helping with it, and am so glad to be done with it and on to me projects! 

Seedlings 2016!

 January! Is that time of year again to start the seedlings! I'm going to rock this garden this year. Last year was miserable because I was miserably pregnant. I burned and froze my seeds. :( Ah well. Always a new year. :)

The weather was warm enough that we were able to get out and prep the garden beds. We had one in particular that needed some attention. My dumb cat decided in its non use, she would use a vacant garden bed as her litter box. 😡

At the end of the season last year I scraped off the top two inches of dirt and all the poop and flooded the bed. Then I put bird netting over it and left it. This week we scraped another inch off the dirt and flooded it again, then layered our chicken coop waste, compost, and left over potting soil from our indoor garden on top. We then flooded it again. Hopefully that will take care of it. I intend on growing pumpkins in the bed this year that we will no be eating. Then we'll add more compost at the end of the season again. 

Stupid cat. 

The tomato and melon seeds popped up amazingly fast! And, as usual, I planted waaaayyyyy too many tomatoes. This picture above was after only 3 days. I think almost all the seeds I planted sprouted, so I had to thin and replant more than a dozen tomato seedlings!   

 Here they are! Very little from the rest of the seedlings. I think I'll be heading to the store to purchase some new seeds. :/ but so far, we are off to a great start! Yay gardening season! 😘

Jack Skellington Infant Diaper

This has been a popular item! I can understand why. The movie is awesome! One of my favorite looking characters. So unique.

This will be a short post, as I just wanted to post a few pictures here. So far I've sold three diaper and a binky holder with this fabric. Too bad it sold out so quickly! Now I have to buy it from the fabric scalpers! >.<

Here is the full size (one size) diaper.

And the binky holders.

Making shirts

Today I made lots of shirts. It started out with a screen printing workshop held by the event coordinators of the Muertos Y Merigold parade, our local Dia De Los Muertos celebration. I have never screen printed before, it was a lot of fun. We were late, of course. It's so hard to get out on time for us (new baby) (slow husband ;). Anyway, I missed most of the introduction and instruction, but caught on fairly quickly.

 The first shirt I made was for the baby. I messed it up slightly at the lower bottom, the instructor said its hard to do on onsies because you can't separate and smooth the fabric like a regular shirt, but it's still cute. Plus, she's always sitting, no one will probably ever notice! ;)

 The next few got easier and easier to do.  We were able to bring our own shirts and add the new theme design for this years parade, or past years designs. 

The theme is 'Silence is Death'. 

There were a lot of cool designs, this one won first place.

They also had lots of shirts to help print on to sell at the parade and art vendor event afterwords. The money goes towards the cost of the event, since it's free for the public. This year will be my 2nd year having a booth at the art vendor event. Last year was awesome but it rained heavily. A first for the event I was told. 

One of the past years designs was a superman themed design. I made one for my son and a few kids sizes for them to sell. I love it....

How awesome is that?!

Here are the final photos for the screen printing. 

I probably made around 2 shirts total before we had to go. My husband was so patiently taking care of the kids outside while I did this. I thought my son would be really into it but alas, he was not. He was into the snack table and the rope swing outside. (Which they informed my husband was not really for kids since a child hung himself on it last year 😳)  (He survived, thank goodness!) 

After we left I went home and started another project, tie dying!!! My last tie dying attempt was thwarted by my old washing machine that decided it was going to be unbalanced and sat there for several hours soaking in dye water. All the shirts and stuff came out dingy and gross. 😔 They ended up being rags. This time I was prepared with a brand new fancy fancy washer! Fanciest thing I've ever owned probably! 

Anyway, I did lots of clothes. I pre washed them and tied them while still wet, Soaked them in Soda Ash and began to dye them. We watched 'The Social Network' while doing all this, so again, no pics! (Really liked that movie!) 

Here are all the dyed shirts wrapped up in grocery bags to let th dye set. 

Waiting to be rinsed.....

Rinsing...

I dyed 5 shirts for my son, 5 shirts for me and hubby, 3 onesies for baby now and three in a few sizes larger to grow into, and some onsies to sell, and a bottom sheet for my bed. 

All of them came out fantastic looking except the bed sheets. I bought them online and when I received them I thought they were a little too.... Shiny and silky to be cotton. But figured 'what do I know?' Because I KNOW I ordered cotton. So, I used them anyway. Well, I was right. After using an extensive amount of dye and letting it set for almost 24 hours, I rinsed them and almost all the dye washed right out. Definitely not cotton. 😡

Only some spots of blue remain. Arg...

For the most part this was all a success! I do love to tie dye!!

Seedlings accidentally

I've never had this happen before. I planted last years seeds and did not intend in using the remains (if there were any) so, I propped the seed packet behind the rows of seed pots as a marker. Today I tried to move one and it ripped, slightly stuck to the bottom of the tray. When I looked inside, the whole packet was full of sprouting seeds! 

I salvaged what I could, as I hate to throw away perfectly good seedlings. 

I am the person who replants the double sprouts into other pots. ;) I can't help myself. 

Hopefully these grow ok. There was a little mold developing on the outer seedlings.

:/

Bees

BEES!!

I have wanted bees for so long, and now I'm finally getting some! My pest control management company is very small. Mom and Pop type. (Matt and Mary Anne) They have several bee hives and in passing told me they were looking for places to set up more. I just about jumped with excitement and practically demanded one. :) That was last year, this year, I finally got a hive. I wanted my own and we came to an agreement that he would teach me what he knows and his techniques and next year I would buy a hive from him and have two in my yard. 

The delivery was somewhat chaotic. They arrived April 2nd, and the hive fell over in Matts trailer on the way. They (the bees) were understandably very  angry. Matt and his son had to suit up and move the angry hive in full gear. They swarmed the property trying to find their bearing.

 

This little gal flew into our car as we were leaving. Had to fish her out with the envelope. She was very disoriented I think. I showed her to the kids and headed to take her back to the hive when she finally flew away.

We waited a couple of days for them to get used to the area before going back to view them. The hive came with a little door and viewing glass which I LOVE. I'm still looking for the perfect size stool to sit and watch them in. It's just so fascinating. 

This is a photo of the hive on the ground. Matt came back a few days later and put it on two sawhorses and the lid on as well. 

This is a photo taken from the viewing window of the hive about a week (9 days, April 9th) after delivery. They already have a comb built and are starting on a second. 

I am very excited to have bees. I love them and have lots of yummy flowers for them to feed on and pollinate. And with all the talk of their decline, I'd like to make sure I have some around. 

:)

Happy Gardening